Planned Parenthood blitzes Senate

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, facing a looming vote in the Senate to cut its federal funding, argues that the ferocious political battle waged over the past few weeks has actually been a positive — a skirmish that finally achieved what abortion rights groups have attempted for a decade by shifting the debate onto the terrain of women’s health.

“Going after the strongest brand in women’s health in America is one of the stupidest things the Republican Party could have done,” Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said in an interview.

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The attempt to cut the group’s funding provided “a real opportunity to do what we’ve been trying to do for the last five years — to say that these are not political issues but, rather, issues of women’s health and to get out of this being such an intellectual, rights-based conversation to where it is such a fundamental matter of women’s health,” Richards said.

The House, led by Indiana Republican Mike Pence, overwhelmingly passed the measure two weeks ago as an amendment to a spending bill, but it may be introduced as a stand-alone measure in the Senate.

“The majority of Americans are opposed to using their tax dollars to fund abortions at home and abroad,” said Pence spokesman Matt Lloyd. “Therefore, Congressman Pence believes the majority of Americans will also agree that the nation’s largest abortion provider should not also be the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X.”

Planned Parenthood is making its case to members of the Senate with a new poll, which the group provided to POLITICO, that suggests voters in 10 key states don’t equate cutting Planned Parenthood funding with curbing the availability of abortions.

The survey, conducted by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling and worded to begin by informing respondents of Planned Parenthood’s most popular services, found “overwhelming” opposition to the cuts, pollster Tom Jensen wrote in a memo.

The survey — which doesn’t use the word “abortion” — found that 57 percent of voters opposed barring federal funding for Planned Parenthood, while only 36 percent supported the move. Support varied across the states, rising only as high as 43 percent in Missouri and Arkansas and falling as low as 27 percent in Massachusetts, where GOP Sen. Scott Brown faces a potential backlash no matter how he votes on the measure.

Federal law has long barred federal funding for abortions, but Planned Parenthood — which relies on private donations as well as public funds — has been targeted by anti-abortion activists because it’s the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Planned Parenthood performed 328,300 abortions in 2008, which would account for about a quarter of the abortions that year, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Officials with the group contend that abortions amount to just a fraction of its larger role — mostly publicly funded — running a network of women’s health clinics that provide, the group says, 1 million screenings for cervical cancer, 830,000 breast cancer checks and birth control prescriptions for 2.5 million people annually.